What is rep farming?

Question

I was expecting this to have already been asked, but can't find any clear explanation in the archives. There are a lot of mentions of the phrase "rep farming" in various meta questions, but it seems the people posting are just assuming the readers know what they mean by that. Well I personally don't find it very clear, and I can't find any clear definition either.

So, what is "rep farming" in the context of Stack Exchange?

• Is it taking advantage of holes or edge cases in the site game mechanics just to gain rep?
• Is it engaging in troll-like or antisocial behavior for the purpose of gaining rep (for example, down-voting good answers just because they compete with yours)?
• Is it posting a flood of low quality questions/answers in hopes of gaining rep statistically?
• Is it regular quality contribution but by someone who happens to care more about reputation than about helping other people?
• Is it some amalgamation of the above? Something else entirely? Is there a clear definition at all, or is it one of those things that is left intentionally vague?

Finally, is rep farming considered bad/harmful for the community, good/helpful, or neutral?

Answer 1

Rep farming (or the discouraged "rep whoring") is just like gold farming. Though rep isn't usually sold, the activities are comparable because to make a profit at selling game currency you need to make a lot of it, and the goal of rep farming is to make a lot of rep.

At its most basic, it's participating just for the reputation. This isn't always bad, but when your primary goal is increasing your number, you're willing to sacrifice other things (honesty, playing by the rules, completeness and quality, etc.) in order to gain things more likely to get you rep (trust, sock puppet accounts, the first answer, etc.). So yes, it's "some amalgamation of the above".

You're not going to find one solid definition that everyone uses consistently — rep farming is something that exists on a scale. In general, though, it leads to lower quality content, antisocial behavior, and the decreased usefulness of rep as a measure of helpful participation, expertise, and trust. People who care about the site — and rep farmers who are out-farmed by people more ingenious or evil than they — obviously view this behavior negatively.

Answer 2

My interpretation of rep farming is totally different, I take it in the agricultural sense.

Rep farming is just sitting back and watching the rep come in from votes on your existing contributions.

For example: if Jon Skeet were to stop contributing today, his rep would keep on shooting up at a much higher rate than the majority of active 'low' rep contributors.

Answer 3

I interpret "rep farming" as being aligned with "farming" - like "the science and techniques of producing crops". So:

Using up a network of sock puppet accounts whose interactions mimic those of real accounts, and whose (large) number help disguise and dilute their pernicious activities.

Answer 4

I suppose attempting an answer such as this could be considered "rep farming" (especially at 33 where a single upvote is worth a lot) but despite the relatively light loss of 2 for downvotes, this could backfire if this "answer spam" results in poor answers! Still, an answer like this is way too self-demonstrating and just so much of an "edge case" for me to pass up, so I thought I'd be a bit humorous here.

More generally, to me this would be if I were to spam answers (in all likelihood, because those get more rep per upvote at +10 vs. +5 for questions) in hopes of some friendly upvotes, so even if they score negative overall, I can still gain reputation!

But it still wouldn't be much if it worked, if they were poor enough quality answers to work against the purpose of reputation. My experience does say that such marginally thought-out QA does attract enough downvotes to mitigate this effect - and defeat the purpose of "answer spam" for reputation. As far as I can tell, questions and answers that earn a lot of reputation deserve it, and there should be no reason to accuse useful QA of "reputation farming" just because it earns up to 200 reputation a day, per that rule capping the daily gain there! So it's not exactly like I can shoot up to moderator-level overnight, and people would have to actually like my answers for me to gain even close to 200 reputation a day!

So I'm not particularly worried about any honest question or answer honestly believed to be fitting for Stack Exchange to be "reputation farming." I may be relatively new here, but from what I can gather, "good" questions and answers are exactly how we're intended to earn reputation, and any such gains should not be construed as "farming!"

Answer 5

Rep farming means that you contribute many good posts to the community. And then, you see that glowing green rectangle, again and again. And you are happy on that.¹

It is the greatest fun of the Stack Exchange.²

¹_{You can have some induvidual local goals, too. For example, getting the VtC/VtR privilege on X site. Or getting to 200 on all your accounts. Better to not say these goals until you reach them.}

²_{Unfortunately, some people - most of them has a high rep, but active only on a single site - typically dislike your this activity, and seem using every trick in the book to prevent you from getting rep. On my experience, somehow they won't understand: although you are just playing, because you enjoy it, you still work hardly to produce a lot HQ content.}